No Small Achievement Affable but forceful commissioner David Baker has thrown his weight around and put the Arena Football League on the sports map

There were menacing glares and vulgar words, the threat of violence cutting through the climate-controlled air. Anyone who questioned the intensity within the Arena Football League would have been swayed by the scene that took place on a November 1995 afternoon in St. Louis, as fierce competitors waged a bitter battle that would help propel their struggling sport to a new level of legitimacy. ¬∂ Alas, the action took place not on a 50-yard indoor field but in a hotel conference room, where contentious team owners berated one another over various issues, including whether to retain commissioner Jim Drucker. It was anunsettling introduction for David Baker, the rookie owner ofthe Anaheim Piranhas, whose first thought was, What have Igotten myself into? "It was total chaos," Baker recalls. "Guyswere yelling, screaming, storming out of the room andthreatening to sue each other." After a similarly mean-spiritedmeeting the previous year in Orlando, Joe O'Hara, then theowner of the Mass Mauraders, had floored Drucker with a punchto the face in a hotel lounge in the Disney World compound."Not our finest hour," remembers Arizona Rattlers vice presidentGene Nudo, who witnessed the blow. "To have a guy flattened inthe place where every kid goes to have a good time wasembarrassing."

Fourteen months later in St. Louis, with Drucker's head figuratively on the chopping block this time, it was Baker, a former politician, who found himself holding the swing vote. He stood up and declared, "I think what we need here is some stability--and some civility." Drucker would serve out the final year of his term, and without knowing it Baker had made an indelible impression. He left the meeting early to fulfill a speaking commitment, only to learn later that his fellow owners had elected him chairman of the board. The next year, after Drucker chose not to accept a contract extension, the owners turned to Baker, a massive man with even bigger ideas.

Who says size doesn't matter? The Arena League may not approach the NFL in profits and popularity, but it does boast a commissioner who makes Paul Tagliabue look like a wet piece of tagliatelle. With his booming voice and mammoth frame--6'9" and, thanks to a recent diet, he says, "a few cupcakes shy of 400 pounds"--Baker had little trouble restoring order. Gazing up at Baker shortly after his ascent to the commissioner's post, a longtime corporate sponsor remarked, "Nobody's going to punch you out."

Six and a half years later, as the AFL continues its counterintuitive run of success in a depressed economy--average attendance for the recently completed regular season was 11,397, up 15% from 2002 and 25% from 2001--owners are more likely to drop to their knees and kiss Baker's hand. The 17-year-old league has credibility (no fewer than 10 owners of other major pro sports franchises own or hold interests in Arena teams), exposure (a TV deal with NBC and teams in eight of the top 10 U.S. markets) and stability (a collective bargaining agreement with its players' association that lasts through 2010). AFL franchises, which cost less than $400,000 when Baker became commissioner, sold for $12 million last year.

"Only a unique individual could have taken us from there to here, especially with so many people hoping he'd fail," says Los Angeles Avengers owner Casey Wasserman. "When you don't have a Michael Vick to be the face of the league, it's huge to have someone like Dave Baker who can be your focal point." Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says Baker, who persuaded him to buy the expansion Dallas Desperados in 2000, "is probably the most significant reason I feel good about our future in the AFL."

Interview the 50-year-old Baker at the league's New York offices, and he spends the first hour giving you a Power Point presentation on the AFL's virtues while sitting in what he calls the Arena, a conference room made to look like a miniature playing field complete with artificial turf. Turn him loose at a game, such as the May 17 regular-season-ending showdown between the visiting Avengers and the defending AFL champion San Jose SaberCats, and he becomes a sponsor-schmoozing, fan-soliciting, baby-kissing dynamo. "Don't you love this?" Baker says over the din of Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild as the SaberCats' cheerleaders are driven onto the field by 16 bikers on their choppers. "I love my two sons more than anything in the world, and I look at the AFL almost as a third child."

Baker has fortified the league through astute business practices and the sheer force of his personality. "He's made Arena Football meaningful," says Rick Burton, who runs the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. "There was a time when off-stream sports would not receive any coverage, but the Arena League has seeped into the national consciousness. They've got a fast-paced game with lots of scoring, crazy tackling and balls bouncing off the net, and ticket prices are affordable. What's not to like?" Baker's ability to draw in NFL owners such as Jones, the Washington Redskins' Daniel Snyder and the Detroit Lions' William Clay Ford helped rid the AFL of its renegade element, as coats and ties replaced shorts and Hawaiian shirts at league meetings. "I hate to say it," says Ramune Ambrozaitis, the SaberCats' managing general partner, "but our meetings have been very boring since Dave took over."

Corny as it may sound, Baker begins each meeting by reciting the AFL mission statement that adorns the back of each league employee's business card. The statement reads, in part, that the league will strive "to serve our community with pride and passion as a quality example of individual and team excellence on the field, in the office, at the arena and within the community."

"Our goal is to be the most fan-friendly league in the world, and that's not totally altruistic," Baker says. "Anyone who's good at business will tell you that pleasing the customer also benefits you as a company. [But sports is sometimes perceived as] a bunch of greedy owners employing a bunch of spoiled, wealthy athletes, and the fan should be happy just to be in the building."

He may be the face of the Arena League, but to a stoic security guard in the post-9/11 era, Baker is just another dude without a credential. "I don't care who you are," the guard outside San Jose's HP Pavilion says, staring eye-to-chest at Baker. "You can't get in here." Baker shrugs and walks back toward the parking lot. Having surrendered his credential to longtime girlfriend Colleen Hall, who has gone back to the couple's hotel room to retrieve their forgotten tickets, Baker can only laugh when reminded, "You know Tags doesn't have to put up with this."

Then again, as Baker readily points out, Tagliabue, with whom he is friendly, probably isn't as comfortable roaming the nosebleed sections and having his picture taken with kids on his shoulders. Baker feels no sense of entitlement. His father, Carl, worked for 32 years in a lumber mill, and his mother, Beuna, was a caregiver for foster children. Growing up in Downey, Calif., a blue-collar suburb of L.A., Baker adopted conservative values that belied the tumultuous times. As student body president of Warren High in 1970, he sponsored a Support America Week, for which he was honored by the Freedoms Foundation. Yet on certain issues Baker was more open-minded than his father, who hailed from Possum Trot, Miss. After accepting a basketball scholarship to UC Irvine, Baker invited an African-American teammate to have dinner at his parents' house, and the two drove up in the big center's baby-blue convertible Volkswagen Beetle. "We got to the front door," Baker recalls, "and my dad wouldn't let him in. I cried that night, a lot."

At 30, after a stint as a real estate lawyer, Baker became the youngest mayor in Irvine's history and was working his way up the Republican Party food chain. He ran for Congress in 1988, and a hard-fought primary campaign culminated in a messy fiscal scandal that changed his life. "There was a lot of mudslinging," Baker says, "and I got caught up in it and made some mistakes. I needed cash to counter an attack, and I wrote a check from an account that wasn't mine, knowing I had money coming in the next day. It may have cost me the election, but it taught me a lot about life."

Shortly thereafter Baker and his wife of 13 years, Patty, divorced, though the two have remained on good terms. Their boys became accomplished offensive linemen--Ben, 20, played one year at Duke before leaving school to work at the AFL's headquarters, and Sam, 17, will attend USC on a scholarship this fall--and Baker, even after taking the AFL job, resolved to be at every one of their games.

Though air travel is a dicey proposition for Baker--"For one thing, I don't fit well in those bathrooms," he says. "And I'm afraid of flying, period"--he considers the skies to be fan-friendly. He inevitably bonds with passengers and crew members and invites them to Arena League games; in fact, his greatest asset may be his ability to connect with an audience. "He's a great salesman, and he totally believes in what he's selling," says Colorado Crush president and CEO John Elway, the former NFL great. "He's one of those guys who you can talk to for half an hour and you feel like you've known him for 10 years."

Yet for all his amiable crusading, Baker has been known to play the schoolyard bully. When talks over the formation of a players' union stalled in 2000, Baker threatened to shut down the season. And in his continual efforts to make the league strong from top to bottom he has disbanded or relocated seven franchises since the end of the 2001 season. (At that time there were 19 AFL teams; now there are 16.) After last season the New Jersey franchise was moved to Las Vegas, the Toronto team was folded and the Crush--Baker had recruited Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and Stan Kroenke, owner of the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets, to buy a team--joined the league as an expansion club. Despite a 2-14 record in its inaugural season, the Crush sold out all eight home games, averaging 17,434 at the Pepsi Center.

However, while the TV deal with NBC is creative (the network pays no rights fees to broadcast the games, and the two parties split the TV advertising revenue down the middle after production and league expenses are paid), the ratings haven't been as high as either side had hoped. For the regular season the average rating was 1.1, down from 1.6 for games over the first four weeks. "That's a modest start in terms of ratings," Baker says, "but we hope to do the opposite of what the XFL did and increase them over time."

As the Arena League moves into major-market mode--only the Grand Rapids franchise, which had average home attendance of 9,675 in 2003, remains as a link to the league's small-city heritage--the offshoot AFL2 is filling the gap, with 28 mostly lesser-market teams. "There are 148 minor league hockey teams in the U.S.," Baker says, "and we think someday there could be more than 100 Arena2 teams." Baker's also thinking global: Last September the AFL conducted a Pacific Rim tryout camp in Australia, and he envisions franchises in Europe, Mexico and Asia. "We have an opportunity," he says, "to have the first worldwide league."

But will Baker be around to enjoy it? His contract expires in December, and he hints that he may walk away, saying, "My son will be at USC, and I want to see him play every week. New York is a great place to work, but I also think that Southern California is the greatest place to live. I hope this isn't my last job. But what does a guy do after being commissioner?"

Neal Pilson, a former CBS Sports president who serves as a broadcasting consultant to the AFL, has an idea. "I don't want to create a groundswell," Pilson says, "but down the road he might have the opportunity to be the commissioner of a larger, more successful American sport." Jones, the Dallas owner, agrees, saying, "Put it this way: He's as qualified an individual as I've seen in sports. He's that good."

For now, Baker relishes his role as the common man's commish. Working the nosebleed seats during the third quarter of the Avengers-SaberCats game, Baker signed a few autographs and chatted up a tattooed season-ticket holder before venturing out to the concession area. Spotting an eight-year-old boy in a San Jose jersey, Baker broke into a wide grin. "As commissioner, I'm in a weird position," he said. "I work for the owners, but sometimes, when I discipline them, they might think they work for me. But do you see that kid right there? That's who we're all working for."

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER GREGOIRE PRICE HIKE The value of AFL teams has soared to $12 million under Baker, who says he's "a few cupcakes shy of 400 pounds."B/W PHOTO: COURTESY OF UC IRVINE FAN FRIENDLY A basketball player at UC Irvine in the early 1970s, Baker still likes to get in on the action.COLOR PHOTO: AL TIELEMANS [See caption above]COLOR PHOTO: STEVE WOLTMANN CATCHING ON For smaller markets like Peoria, Ill., Baker founded AFL2, a 28-team league he hopes to grow to 100.

"I love my two sons more than anything, and I LOOK AT THE AFL almost as a third child," Baker says.

"They've got a fast-paced game with lots of scoring, and ticketprices are affordable. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE?"